El'ru'esta
by Psicygni
Summary: The first time they touch and the first time he touches her are not the same.


**I just want to say that I don't think Spock deciding to go to the new Vulcan colony and coming back to Starfleet happened without a massive issue between the two of them. I've read many authors who have written about this brilliantly, but it wasn't something I was in the mood to tackle here.**

**The title is from the Starbase-10 Vulcan dictionary and means "hand embrace."**

When she first sees him him, her hands are clutching her orientation schedule and she very nearly bumps into him amidst the crush of first year cadets all searching for their way around campus. He nods at her and steps aside to let her pass, cutting through the crowd of red to join the other instructors.

In the first class she takes with him, there are 1,345 other first year cadets as they listen to his lectures on Interspecies Ethics. Her hands fly confidently over her PADD, taking notes as she angles her way to the top of the class.

She goes to his office hours that semester, prepared to meet with austerity and recalcitrance. Instead he sits with her for 45 minutes reviewing a sub dialect of Trill she stumbled across and didn't know who else to ask to learn more from. She does not shake his hand in thanks, but presses her palm down on the desk between them as she stands to go and he nods at her.

Her first day as his teaching assistant goes late because she mentions she spent the summer studying a dialectometry of Andorian and he recommends a paper by a Tellarite linguist that she had not come across in her research. He loads it on a PADD and, if she thought such things about the Commander, she would swear their fingers very nearly brushed as he hands it to her.

Their first meal together is dinner in his office as they grade final exams. She is _starving_, which he claims to be nearly impossible considering she ate lunch not six hours before, but she offers to grab something quick to bring back, and does he want something? He does, and they eat in silence broken only by the click of their fingers as they type.

The first time they touch and the first time he touches her are not the same. The former is a brief fumble as she takes a stylus from him to point out a mistake in a student's paper. She is standing over his shoulder at his desk, looking at the PADD and at the proffered stylus out of the corner of her eye, so when her fingers close over it and his are still there, the contact and jolt of heat are both surprising. It is not, as Gaila had tried to tell her, an open door into his mind (admittedly, Gaila's rendition included some complicated sexual fantasies within that mind), but later Nyota wonders if that heat she felt was normal or if it wasn't something else.

The first time he deliberately touches her, she is holding a cup of tea from the café down the street and handing him his as they turn to walk back towards the Academy. It's windy and her hair keeps blowing in her face, and when he gently brushes it back, taking an extra half step forward in that way he keeps doing lately, she can feel the touch of his knuckles on her cheek long after her tea is gone.

It's not a date, she tells herself and Gaila, despite pulling out most of her wardrobe and uncharacteristically scattering it on her bunk as she searches for what to wear the first time they see each other outside of work. "Careful," Gaila drawls, "you don't want to spend more time picking out an outfit than you did choosing electives." Nyota knows it's not a date, and therefore it doesn't matter what she wears, but she runs her fingers over the smooth fabric of a favorite skirt and wonders.

The first time they kiss, her hands are shaking as they rise to his face, and it takes him a long moment until his own close around her waist, demurely above anything that could be considered improper before they slide a bit lower.

The first time they have sex, he draws her hands up above her head, holding them there loosely by the wrists and his fingers skim across her body.

The first time he touches her mind, her fingers squeeze his free hand as they sit facing each other on his couch. His are gentle on her face, and the lines of numbers and music in his thoughts take her breath away with a melody she feels she always knew.

After Nero, his are the hands that shake, first on Kirk's neck as she watches with horror, and then later, braced on the entry way to his bed chamber, him shaking his head as he refuses to join her there. "Please," she says, since she doesn't know if she wants the comfort of their bodies pressed into the mattress together, or if she wants to give that to him, but he swallows and his forearms flex against the doorjamb and she waits until he even just sits beside her.

That night, he pressed his face against hers with great, gasping gulps of air and she isn't sure if she's crying or he is, but her cheeks are wet when she pulls back to hold his jaw in her hands, kissing his eyes, his mouth, murmuring all while, "I love you, I love you."

After, there is a barrage of newscasts, holo cameras following the crew wherever they turn and her only refuge seems to be her dorm. It is filled with Gaila's belongings, and Nyota sits on her bunk, nauseous. When he finds her there, to say goodbye, she raises her hand before he can speak and they move together until her sheets are soaked with sweat. Nyota can't help but feel that Gaila would be proud as they gasp for breath, the air heavy between them.

Nyota is a trained linguist, a Communications track cadet who received a field promotion which stands in the press-relations wake of the _Narada_ and yet she has no words when the transfer for the _Enterprise_'s Chief Science Officer comes across her console. She forwards it to Kirk's queue, though she doubts he'll read it, and runs her thumb over the spot on her wrist where Spock had pressed in farewell. She believes she can hear the transporter beam as he arrives on board, moments before the doors to the bridge hiss open and his boots strike the deck as he heads towards Kirk, and herself.

That evening, he walks into her quarters and steps towards her, interlacing their fingers. The stars flash by outside and she can hear the steady hum of the _Enterprises'_ engines around them. There is much to say, much that needs to be said, but she just squeezes his fingers and he draws their hands up to his chest and she can feel, as always when he touches her like this, the warm press of his mind against hers and the music that swells between them.


End file.
